


Scarlet Indignation

by angevin2



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Character, Gen, Grief, Historical, Internal Monologue, Medieval
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But soft, but see, or rather do not see / My fair rose wither...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarlet Indignation

**Author's Note:**

> For **gileonnen**, who requested Richard II and land magic. This isn't _quite_ what you asked for -- apparently I have a subconscious resistance to writing the fantastic -- but I hope it will suffice.

It is August and the roses have withered, their petals blackened and curling, the lingering remains moldering upon the ground like the dead after a battle.

King Richard the Second will fight no more battles. He is nearly a captive, now, within the stout and crumbling towers of Flint Castle, waiting only for the doom that has played out a thousand times in his thoughts to play out in earnest.

The wild roses that cling to the walls of the courtyard, gnarled with long neglect, would have died by now anyway; it is no sign for rustic prophets to peer into and divine his fall. Richard thinks of Christ crowned with thorns, of the crucifix his father kept in his lodgings, face wrenched in agony, its lines etched in blood. When he was a child it terrified and fascinated him in equal measure, and when the golden crown was placed on his own head he could not help but remember the Savior's blood rendered in fading red ochre.

He snaps a branch from off the bush, takes the stem between his fingers, pressing down, feeling the sharp, hot pinch as the skin breaks. The drop of blood that wells up is a darker red than the roses would have been in their prime: it is that blood that exalts him above any man in the land, that has flowed in the veins of Edward the Black Prince and the great Edward the third, that marks him as one who, like Christ, bears the impress of the divine.

It is that blood, as well, that will, without doubt, soon be laid in the dust to clear the pathway to the throne for his cousin.

They have said that the Welsh armies fled because the bay trees in their land have withered, a sign, they believed, that Richard had died, and perhaps, Richard thinks, he has, for he is now but the bare name of a king, and when he calls upon the very land, upon God himself, there is no response but silence and the uncomfortable coughs of his last followers, and his own voice in his ears, invoking the aid of a barren shore, a revolting land which chokes its own issue. He grips the stem of the rose more tightly, clenching it in his fist; the sting of torn and bleeding flesh is very nearly merciful, for the dead feel no pain, and the damned a much greater pain.

When they come to tell him that Henry Bolingbroke has come upon them in arms, the castle is ringed with a thicket of spears, and Richard thinks again of the crown of thorns.

And the man who will destroy Richard wears the red rose on his breast.


End file.
